News

Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.

Austin Jenkins, Northwest News Network

OLYMPIA, Wash. – Washington House Democrats have unveiled a proposed two-year budget that looks a lot like Governor Jay Inslee’s. It would renew expiring tax hikes, close several tax exemptions and put the new money into public schools.

House Democrats would actually spend a tad more than the governor. But their approach is very similar. For example: extend an expiring tax on beer and end the sales tax exemption for bottled water and shoppers from sales tax free Oregon.

House Finance Chair Reuven Carlyle says the money raised is needed to begin to comply with a Washington Supreme Court ruling that says the state is not adequately funding public schools.

“We’re proposing to close or reform 15 tax exemptions, credits or preferential rates and to extend some of the existing credits that the governor talked about it and we’re proposing to put virtually every single penny into public education.”

That’s an estimated $1.3 billion over the next two years. The Republican chair of the Senate budget committee quickly called the House plan a tax hike on Washington families. The Senate last week passed a no-new-taxes budget that would put about $1 billion toward basic education, but cut some social services.

The deadline to negotiate a final go-home budget is less than three weeks away.